Dr. Mariana Münning
Wang Li in Paris – Chinese Linguists and the ‘French Connection’
Wang Li‘s 王力 (1900-1986) time in Paris (1927-1932) is the starting point of my investigation. He studied there after Zhao Yuanren’s 趙元任 (Chao Yuen Ren, 1892-1982) recommendation, who had visited the University of Paris in 1924 and studied and/or conversed with the linguists Joseph Vendryès (1875-1960) and Antoine Meillet (1866-1936), and with the sinologist Henri Maspero (1883-1945).
When Wang Li was in Paris, he studied with the theoretical linguist Vendryès, and the sinologists Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and Marcel Granet (1884-1940). Wang Li graduated from Paris University with a PhD thesis on his native Bobai 博白 dialect (Une prononciation chinoise de Po-Pei (province de Kouang-si) : étudiée à l’aide de la phonétique expérimentale).
The French capital became a veritable hotbed for innovative and discipline-shaping linguists. Apart from Wang and Zhao, also Gao Mingkai 高名凱 (1911-1965) and, though an older generation, Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠 (1845-1900), author of the famous Ma shi wentong 馬氏文通 studied there.
Some questions that I want to tackle, are:
What was the relationship between the French and the Chinese actors? Was it a relation between teacher and student with a clear hierarchy? Were the Chinese informants about the Chinese language for the French professors? Was there maybe a more equal exchange with Zhao Yuanren? Were Wang and his compatriots some sort of go-betweens through whom knowledge (maybe only partly) could permeate between the two “spaces of circulation” (Kapil Raj, 2017)? Or did the French even underestimate the explanatory power of Chinese linguistics? What sources can we use to find out?
As many other who had studied abroad, Wang Li and Gao Mingkai occupied important positions in an increasingly institutionalized world of linguistics, and, especially Wang, of language planning in China. What role does the “French Connection” play for nowadays “languagescape”? And vice versa, did the Chinese students leave traces in Paris?
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OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Editor (6. Oktober 2021). Dr. Mariana Münning. Chinawissen vernetzt / Sinologia in rete / Savoirs sur la Chine en réseau. Abgerufen am 14. Juni 2025 von https://sinonet.hypotheses.org/193